A method for generating a triggering decision for a restraint system, e.g., for soil trips, are described in the applicant's German patent application DE 101 49 112. Soil trips are situations in which the vehicle, following a skidding event, slips sideways and then ends up on ground that has a high coefficient of friction, for example the unpaved ground alongside a roadway. If the vehicle then slips to the right, for example, as represented in FIG. 1, namely vehicle 1a on roadway 2, the tires on the right side will experience a strong deceleration at point 1b, which will then induce a torque of the vehicle on the unpaved ground 3. At time 1c, the vehicle is already fully engaged in a rollover event. In German patent application DE 10149 112, the triggering decision is determined as a function of vehicle dynamics data, a sideslip angle in conjunction with a vehicle lateral velocity and a vehicle tilting motion being used as vehicle dynamics data. The triggering decision is then generated by suitable threshold value comparisons.
Published international patent application WO 99/47384 describes the generation of the triggering decision in the case of a soil trip rollover as a function of the rate of rotation about the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, a vehicle velocity and a vehicle lateral acceleration. In the process, the vehicle lateral acceleration is compared to a fixed threshold value. Only when this fixed threshold value is exceeded can a triggering decision be reached.